


To the waters and the wild

by romans



Category: Labyrinth (1986), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-25 23:52:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romans/pseuds/romans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia's having bad dreams. Stiles is having doubts. Derek is just having a bad day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neil4god](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neil4god/gifts).



> This was totally and completely inspired by neil4god's fic, [It's Only Forever](http://archiveofourown.org/works/942111/chapters/1837380). We agreed that there needed to be more Teen Wolf-Labyrinth crossovers in the world.

_She's been having dreams about him ever since the night on the football field._

_No, since- since- she can't remember. But she dreams._

She doesn't remember telling Stiles. It's not her fault. 

_

"Hi!" Stiles says, poking his head around the edge of Derek's door. 

He's trying to look innocent, and that's Derek's first clue that something terrible is going to happen. He quirks an eyebrow at Stiles and waits to hear what's coming next. The kid is almost totally unafraid of him now, after a year of narrow escapes and what could nearly be called friendship. 

"So, uh," Stiles says, tripping over his feet and his words and the shovel in his hand as he comes through the door. "Derek, old buddy, doyoufeellikealittlegraverobbing?" 

" _Grave robbing?_ " He doesn't want to know. He really doesn't want to know. Unless it's going to kill someone, he doesn't want to know. And even then- 

"Please," Stiles says. The word bursts out of his mouth as if against his volition, and he grimaces. "I have a good reason. Like, a really good reason." 

"What? And why me?" Derek asks. 

"You'd understand better than Scott," Stiles says. He hefts the shovel in his hand, unconsciously fidgeting. "It's my mom. She might be alive." 

Stiles is a low-down dirty little _shit_. Derek knew that, of course, but he hadn't expected the manipulation to be so blatant. Derek would do a lot more than vandalize a cemetery if he thought there was even a chance of his mother being alive. 

"You want to dig up your mom's grave," he says flatly, trying to gauge Stiles' level of crazy. 

"It would be faster with two," Stiles says, like he's a reasonable human being, "and besides, you've already been arrested once." 

Derek rolls his eyes. "You're crazy," he says. 

"That's not a no," Stiles says. He's gimlet-eyed and nervy in the half-light of Derek's loft. Once it had set Derek's teeth on edge, but now it's just old and familiar. 

"I have to know," Stiles adds, more softly. 

"Where is she buried?" Derek asks. It's depressing, how much time he spends doing unsavory things at odd hours of the night. 

This is his life, apparently. 

Sometimes he really misses New York. 

-

The earth around Claudia Stilinski's grave is packed hard under the carpet of manicured grass that covers it, and between the two of them it takes two hours to dig down to the battered wood of her coffin. Stiles jumps a mile when his shovel clatters against the lid of his mother's coffin. 

"Sorry," he whispers, and Derek's not sure if he's apologizing for the noise or for the desecration.

"I have to know," Stiles says, again. It sounds suspiciously like a pep talk. He looks up at Derek with liquid eyes. "Can you-?" 

Derek jumps down into the grave, repressing the sudden sense-memory of Laura in his arms, stinking and bloody and lifeless. The walls of the grave wobble for a moment, and then he shakes it off. It's not Laura's grave. It's not even Peter's. None of his family here. 

Stiles draws in a shaky breath. Derek flexes his fingers against the sides of the lid, and looks up at Stiles one last time. His brow is furrowed and his face is set, and he nods in response to Derek's silent question. 

Derek pulls the lid off in one smooth jerk and props it against the side of the grave, gently. He knows that something is wrong almost before the lid is off. It doesn't _smell_ right. It barely smells at all, in fact, because the coffin is empty. 

Stiles is staring into the coffin, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. 

" _What?_ " he says, a little faintly. His voice squeaks. He turns on his flashlight with trembling hands and slides down into the grave to stand awkwardly beside Derek.

The shaking light flickers over the coffin, revealing rotten silk, buckled planks, and a... branch? Derek grabs Stile's wrist and angles the light so that it illuminates a long, flat block of wood that's sitting in the coffin like a body. It's almost like driftwood, soft around the edges and covered in marbled whorls. It shimmers, very faintly, when he moves the light. 

"What the fuck?" Stiles says. 

He and Derek share a perplexed look. 

"Where is my mom?" Stiles asks. They stand there, dumbfounded, looking down at the branch. Something stirs at the back of Derek's mind, a long-forgotten fairy tale, but it's cut off by the wail of sirens in the distance. 

"We have to go," Derek says. The sirens aren't for them, but they remind him that he and Stiles are technically breaking the law. 

"Yeah," Stiles says, distractedly. The flashlight clicks off, plunging them into darkness. "Wait. We should take it to Deaton." 

"The... thing?" Derek asks. The branch glimmers benignly in the moonlight. 

"Yeah," Stiles says. He heaves himself up and out of the ground as he speaks, leaving Derek standing alone in the grave. Derek gives him a dubious look. 

" _I'm_ not touching it," Stiles says. "I'm human, remember?" 

Derek rolls his eyes, but there's steel hiding underneath Stiles' flippant tone. The branch, when he picks it up, feels like perfectly ordinary wood. It smells like rotten peaches. He tosses it up out of the grave, clearing the edge by several feet, and then clambers out.

They fill the grave hastily, and take a little longer to lay the sod flat again. Hopefully no one will notice the churned earth and trampled grass. 

When have they ever been that lucky? 

Derek puts it out of his mind and follows Stiles back to his jeep. Stiles is carrying the branch now. It's about five feet long and it leaves traces of glitter on the back seat of the car. The car has already been splattered with blood and black bile and vomit and alcohol: glitter, in Derek's opinion, is almost an improvement. Stiles really needs to reupholster his car. Someday someone's going to shine a black light inside of it and decide that Stiles is a mass murderer. 

-

_The King is singing again. His voice is low and melodic and unearthly, and his audience is only half-listening. A flash of dark hair, and green eyes, and still, always, that voice, carrying across worlds._

Lydia turns over in her sleep, frowning, and the memories flood through her mind.

-

The lights are on in Deaton's clinic when they pull up and park haphazardly on the curb. Stiles was uncharacteristically silent for the entire drive, his hands rigid on the steering wheel and his face pale and set. 

Derek picks up the branch this time, because Stiles looks like he's about to vomit. He watches Stiles clench his fists, once, and then Stiles pounds on the door. 

"Deaton!" Stiles yells, and Derek winces. "I know you're in there!" 

He can hear Deaton's footsteps moving through the clinic, the slight wobble of his right knee making his gait uneven. He's probably had it his whole life, doesn't notice at all. When he opens the door he's as inscrutable and calm as ever, and he doesn't seem remotely surprised to see Stiles and Derek standing at his threshold in the middle of the night. 

His eyes widen minutely when he sees the branch, but he turns his attention to Stiles. 

"Come in," he says, pulling the door open, and something in the air _gives_ , the way it always does when he invites Derek inside. There must be some subtle protection worked into the door, some kind of magic. Derek hefts the branch and follows Stiles into the vet's office.

When they sit down around Deaton's desk, Stiles has tears brimming in his eyes. He swipes at them angrily. Derek sets the branch down on Deaton's paper-strewn desk and settles into a corner of the room, away from the light. He always feels uneasy in Deaton's office. 

Stiles gives him a fast, watery glance, and then he turns back to Deaton. 

"Where is my mom?" Stiles asks. 

"This was in her grave," Stiles adds, before Deaton can reply. "I was in the hospital with her when she- when- so why-" He stops and scrubs a dirty hand across his eyes. Derek sinks further into his corner. The memory is niggling at the back of his mind again. Something about wood, and death. 

Deaton strokes one finger along the branch, curiously, and then examines the glitter clinging to his fingers.

"You found this in her coffin?" he asks. 

"Did someone steal her body?" Stiles asks. 

"No," Deaton replies. "Of course, it depends on how you look at it. How much do you actually know about how your parents met?" 

"They met in a bookstore," Stiles says. "And then they got married. And then mom had me and then she had cancer and she died. My dad doesn't like to talk about it." 

Deaton nods, as if he had expected as much.

"That's not the whole story," he says. "Are you sure you want to know it?"

" _Yes_ ," Stiles says.

"You could lose a lot," Deaton says. "Almost everything." 

"I have to know," Stiles says. "It's gonna drive me crazy." His knuckles are white where they're gripping the arms of his chair. 

"You're certain?" Deaton says again. It's a warning, despite his mild tone. 

Stiles nods tightly. Deaton huffs his breath out in a laugh. "You really are like her," he says. 

"Your mother is your mother," Deaton says, and Derek frowns at the redundancy. "But your father," Deaton continues, "isn't strictly your father." 

"Dad?" Stiles says. "Dad's not-"

"Wait." Deaton holds up a hand. "He's raised you since you were too little to eat solid food, and he's more of a father than your biological father has ever been. He's still your dad." Stiles lets go of the chair to rub his hands over his face and across his scalp. His hair sticks up in feathery tufts when he drops his hands. 

"Dad is-" he starts, but Deaton interrupts him again. "Your dad's your dad. He's still your father and for you to treat him any differently would be cruel. So." 

Stiles nods, his face unreadable. 

"Your mother came to town a little less than sixteen years ago. She was on her own, and all she had in the world was you. She was very beautiful, I remember that." Deaton smiles. "I helped her to find a safe place to stay, and I got her a job in a bookshop. She was running away from something, but she would never say what."

He gives the branch a rueful look. 

"Something magical?" Stiles asks. 

"Something magical," Deaton confirms. "She met your father a few months after she came here, and he fell for her. It was love at first sight. They started dating, and then- well. You know the rest. They made their own little family. She used to tell me that she liked how ordinary Beacon Hills was."

Derek's eyebrows make a break for his hairline. 

Stiles takes a deep breath. "So she had me and then she, what, ran away from my real dad? Or something else-" 

Deaton's face is kind. "She told me when she came here that she was afraid for you. She was afraid of what your father would do to you."

"Like, what? Abuse me?" Stiles asks. Derek's gaze snaps up at the word, and he feels the change twitch along his spine. He wills it back, clenching his hands until his palms bleed.

"I don't think it was anything like that," Deaton says. "She thought he would make you less than human. She was afraid of what he was, not who he was."

"What was he?" Stiles asks. 

"Until now, I wasn't sure." Deaton nods towards the branch on his desk. "That's made things clearer. Why do you go by Stiles?" 

The question catches them off guard. Stiles shakes his head, trying to follow the apparent non-sequitur. 

"Because I don't like my name?" he asks. Deaton shakes his head. 

"She never called you by your real name. That was my first clue. I can count the people who know your real name on one hand, Stiles, and we all know better than to use it." 

"What's wrong with my name?" Stiles asks. He sounds indignant now, a little like the old Stiles. 

"It's not your what your name is, it's what it can _do_. Your mother called herself Claudia, but that wasn't her real name, either. Names have more power than you realize," Deaton says. "And then she asked me to find her a safe place to live. Your house has so many wards on it I'm amazed it's still standing. It took me a long time to set them up."

"She was hiding from him," Stiles says. 

"And you have the spark," Deaton says. "I wondered, then. Now I think I can finish your mother's story for you. I don't know exactly what happened, but I think- I think your father was a very powerful being." 

Stiles rolls his head to look at Derek. _Being?_ he mouths. Derek shrugs. 

"I guess your mother didn't trust him with you- maybe she had precedent, or maybe they were just too different. She loved him, if that helps. She just loved you more. When she had you she ran away and hid. Tried to give you a normal life. She never said your name. She warded her house. She married John. And I think it worked, for a while. She was free."

"He caught up with her," Stiles says. 

Deaton nods. "That's why she got sick," he says, gently. 

Stiles looks lost. The story is niggling at Derek's mind again. There's a word on the tip of his tongue- _changeling._

"He was a fairy," Derek says, making the connection. 

"Fae," Deaton corrects him. "And he would make the Darach look like walk in the park. He caught up with you, somehow. Maybe someone said your name, or made a wish, or-" he stops short for a moment. 

"If we're dealing with who I think we're dealing with, we're dealing with some serious power," he says. "He found your mother, and he probably made a deal: you or her."

Stiles' lips tighten into a thin line. 

"She wanted you to have a good life," Deaton says. "So she went with him. He left a fetch at your house. She would have seemed fine for a while, and then she would have faded. Sickened and died." 

Stiles takes a long, shuddering breath.

"It was a very powerful glamour," Deaton says. He nods at the branch sitting on his desk. "But it wasn't real." 

Derek watches Stiles for a moment, taking in his wan face and his shaking hands. His whole world has just collapsed in on itself. Derek knows the feeling. 

"Do you know who he is?" Derek asks. 

"Not yet," Deaton says, "but I have an idea. I need to research. Come back tomorrow." 

-

_Stiles, Claudia says. She's been dead ten years now. She's young and beautiful, and she rests her head on an armored shoulder, speaks to someone Lydia can't quite make out. The scenery changes, and she's alone in the forest. She can see the sheriff's car on the road, and she can't remember..._

-

They drive back to Stiles' house in an exhausted silence. When they reach the driveway, Derek cuts the engine and turns to look at Stiles. 

"How did you know to go look?" he asks. Stiles' eyes are unfocused and red, but he seems to hear the question. 

"Lydia," he croaks. "She had a vision. A dream. I don't know, it was- it was crazy. I shouldn't have even- but she knows things. You know?" 

He gives Derek a watery smile and then gets out of the car. Derek follows him out into the night. Crickets are chirping in the grass. The house is dark, and the neighbor is watching a movie across the street, windows flashing in the night. A barn owl glides overhead, searching for a midnight snack. Everything is perfectly ordinary. 

The world didn't change much after Derek's family died, either. It kept going on. 

"Be careful," Derek says, tossing the keys over the hood of the car.

"Always am," Stiles says, a little hollowly. 

_

_Sarah, the man says. Her name is Sarah. Lydia has never been so hungry in her life, but he plucks the fruit from her hand before she can take a bite. Go home, Lydia._  



	2. Chapter 2

"So I looked up the Fae," Stiles says, when Derek picks him up. Of course Stiles has researched the Fae. Words have always been his favorite weapon. 

"And changelings," Stiles continues. "The internet says that they usually take babies and replace them with goblins. Or wood. And they don't like iron, but I'm fine. I would be dead if I was a changeling. And jeez, I always thought fairies were like Tinkerbell but they're _really_ not." 

He lapses into silence for approximately two seconds. 

"This is so fucked up," he says. He thunks his head back against the headrest. "Do you think maybe Lydia was kidnapped by the fairies?"

Derek gives him a sideways glance. 

"Not like she's crazy," Stiles says. "I think she went somewhere else. She disappeared for two days and came back naked? And confused? And _magical_? It has fairies written all over it!"

"What about Peter?" Derek asks, turning onto Deaton's street.

"Maybe she went somewhere to escape from him," Stiles says. "I think she went to where my mom is. Time runs differently in all the stories, so it could have been weeks for her." Stiles would ordinarily be animated and excited and incredibly irritating, sharing the fruits of his research, but this time he just seems worn out. 

Derek pulls up in front of Deaton's clinic, and they sit quietly for a moment, listening to the car ticking as it cools down. 

"How did she get there?" Derek asks. Stiles, sitting with his head pressed against the window, shrugs.

"I think she _wished_ ," he says, voice muffled by the glass. "When I do my magic I have to take for granted that it'll work. Maybe she wanted to get away from Peter so badly that she just _slipped_." He shrugs again, and then sits up. 

"Let's go meet my dad," Stiles says. 

_

 _Lydia had a message to deliver, she's sure of it. She wishes she could remember. Her tongue is heavy with the taste of sweet cherries and over-ripe peaches. Her bed is full of Wolfsbane._  
_

 

Deaton greets them with a grim smile. When they reach his office, there's a neat stack of books on his desk. More words, Derek thinks. He's always fought with brute strength, with his claws and his teeth and his blood. But he's beginning to respect the power of words, and magic. The right words at the right time, a well-timed wish, intent and imagination, can be more devastating than an entire pack of Alphas. 

The first thing that Deaton says is: "This is above my pay grade." 

"You can't-" Stiles yelps, but Deaton forestalls him with a raised finger. 

"I can tell you _who_ your father is, but I can't contact him or your mother. Once you open that door, it stays open."

Stiles slumps back into his chair. Deaton picks up a slim red book. It's worn pink in some places from handling, and the cover is so frayed that the title is completely unreadable. He turns it in his hands a few times, looking uncertain, and then he slides it across the table to Stiles. 

"Your mother left you this," he says. "I think it might answer your questions."

Stiles looks from Deaton to the book, and then opens it to a random page. 

"It's a fairy tale," he says. Deaton shakes his head. 

"You know that doesn't mean it's not true," he says. Stiles closes the book gently. 

"My dad's in here?" he asks. 

"He is," Deaton says. "But I didn't need the book to work that out. Your father is the Goblin King." 

"King?" Derek repeats. " _Goblin?_ " Stiles says, at the same time. 

Deaton folds his hands on the table in front of him and leans forward. "I had to do some cross-checking," he says, "but I've narrowed it down. The year your mother got sick, the couple down the street lost their youngest daughter. She was only a baby, so there was a huge uproar. Your father could probably tell you all about it."

"She died?" Stiles says. 

"No," Deaton says. "She was _lost_. Or, more accurately- taken." 

"By my father," Stiles says faintly. "And Dad- Dad was trying to _find_ her. He didn't even know." 

He remembers, suddenly, that his mother had come into his bedroom one night, even though he was far too old to be tucked into bed by his parents. She had sat at the edge of his bed for a long time, running her fingers through his hair. 

He had pretended to be asleep. 

"I love you, baby," his mother had said. Her fingers were warm on his head.

After that, far too soon, she had been diagnosed with cancer. And then he had watched, helpless, as she wasted away. He had been too wrapped up in his own grief and misery to care about a missing baby three doors down. 

"That was how he found us," Stiles says. Deaton nods. "And then he took my mom away," Stiles says. His smile is bitter around the edges.

"What's the point of her being alive if I can't ever see her again?" he asks. The little red book feels like it's cutting into his hands, even though that's impossible. 

"She might as well be dead," Stiles says. Something ugly is roiling up inside of him, like a dark shadow of the magic that Deaton had taught him to use. 

Stiles shoves his chair back and stands up, struggling to contain the incandescent rage inside of his body. The shelves rattle, a little, and something chitters in a dark corner. 

"I have to go," Stiles says through gritted teeth. He stalks out of the clinic, clutching the little red book to his chest. His biological father isn't human and his mother is the Goblin Queen, apparently. He wonders if she even remembers him. Goblin fruit made you forget, according to the lore. Maybe she doesn't even miss him. 

Derek is going to give him so much shit for this, he thinks, distantly. But that's in the future. Right now- right now he has to remember to breathe. 

When he glances back, Derek is pacing him, carrying the pile of books that had been on Deaton's desk. More information about the Fae, maybe, or Goblins, or stolen mothers, perhaps. 

"Stiles!" Deaton calls, as they're going out the door. They turn in unison to look back at him. 

"Whatever you do," Deaton says. "Don't say The Words."

"I won't," Stiles says. 

It's not _fair_. There has to be another way to get his mother back. 

_

Lydia rolls out of bed, suddenly claustrophobic. Her mouth is full of peachfuzz, and she brushes her teeth until her gums sting and bleed. She stays in the shower until her skin is nearly raw. She tries to remember her dreams.  
_

Stiles thinks about walking home in a sulk, but it's kind of far and it's nice to be driven, and Derek has been giving him this _concerned_ look that's frankly unnerving. Derek Hale, to his knowledge, does not do "concerned". So Stiles slides into the passenger seat of Derek's car and buckles himself in, eyes fixed on the book in his lap. 

He can already feel his anger dissipating. In its place comes a wave of sadness, choking up his throat and stinging his eyes. Derek hasn't started the car. He's just sitting there, waiting. Like he actually cares.

"When she died," Stiles says, "I thought it was my fault." It hadn't been, on the surface, but some part of his mind was obsessed with the idea that everything was his fault.

He forces down the tears that have been threatening since he left the clinic, and looks up at Derek.

"Turns out she's not dead, just gone, and it _is_ my fault," he says. "Maybe she wasn't forced to choose. Maybe she left me. She enchanted a piece of wood and then abandoned me. What kind of mother does that?" 

A goblin mother, maybe. But she had tried so hard to keep him human. 

"Can we go?" Stiles asks. Derek frowns, but he starts the car. 

"I just want to go home," Stiles says. For a moment the air outside his window is arid and dusty, not cool and wet, and the evergreen trees sparkle with glitter. There's a wall where there wasn't one before, running alongside the road. Then Derek steps on the gas, and the engine rumbles, and the mirage falls apart. 

Stiles fell asleep last night while he was reading _Tam Lin_. It was just his imagination playing tricks on him. He ignores Derek's sidelong glances and watches the scenery go by, tree spinning into tree as they pick up speed.

_

 

There's a barn owl perched on a tree outside of her house in the morning. Lydia gives it a long, suspicious look when she gets into her car. It's wearing winter plumage, totally out of season. The owl ruffles its feathers and stares right back, but other than the fact that it's out during the day, there's nothing unusual about it. 

_Right._

She gives the owl one last look and decides she'll ask Allison about it when she gets to school. It might be nothing, but if it's another creepy supernatural thing, they may as well try to get the jump on it. She'd thought after Jackson, after _Scott_ , that Beacon Hills would have used up it's supply of esoteric horrors, but Ms. Blake had proven otherwise. And she'd been having dreams lately... 

She turns up the radio and forces herself to focus on the road. Time for all of that later.

She doesn't notice that the owl is following her, gliding above the city on silent wings.  
_

"A barn owl?" Allison says. Lydia nods.

"It's completely out of season, and it was out in the morning," she says, "After Prada and the crows, I try to keep an eye out for, you know, strange things. And this was _strange_." 

Allison purses her lips. "I've never heard of anything associated with barn owls," she says. "But I'll ask my dad." 

"And I'll hit the books," Lydia says, pulling out her notebook as the new English teacher comes into the classroom. Ms. Larson is a sub and she's a little boring and completely unremarkable. Just the way Lydia likes it, now. 

"Good morning, class-" Mrs. Larson is cut off when Stiles comes into the room, shoulders hunched, head down. 

"Oversleep, Stiles?" she asks. Stiles ignores her and slips into his seat. Up close he looks like shit, like maybe he didn't sleep at all. When Lydia looks back at the chalkboard, Ms. Larson is writing a title in her scrawling, untidy hand. The chalk scrapes against the board. 

_Christina ROSETTI: The Goblin Market, 1862_  
  _W. B. YEATS: The Stolen Child   1889_

_COMPARE AND CONTRAST_

" _No,_ " Stiles breathes. "You're _joking_." 

Lydia frowns at him. She'll have to corner him later: there's something going on for sure. 

"Today we're going to explicate these poems," Ms. Larson says, "and then compare them to each other. Explication means 'to unfold' or 'to find the truth'. These are two very different poems about the same thing, and I want you to find out where they overlap. What do they agree on?" 

Lydia smiles, and uncaps her pen. This should be a piece of cake.

-

Stiles heads over to Lydia's house after school, ostensibly to pick her brain about goblins (garden variety) but really, well, to pick her brain about Goblin Kings. 

And maybe possibly just a little bit to see if she can help him summon his mother from the Otherworld. 

_Once you open that door, it stays open._

He knows The Words now, knows them by heart. And he promised Deaton that he wouldn't go looking for the Goblin King. But if Lydia somehow opened the door, and then forgot to lock it behind her- his mom is behind that door. 

He's not going to just leave her there. No way.

The wind picks up and rain starts spitting down when he gets out of the Jeep. He hugs his books closer and jogs up to Lydia's front door. Stiles rings the doorbell, and, as if it's a cue, the drizzle of rain turns into a torrent. 

"Oh my _God!_ " Stiles shouts, hunching into his hoodie, and then Lydia opens the door. 

"Can I come in?" Stiles asks. "Please?"

The wind all but sweeps him into her foyer, and then slams the door shut behind him. Stiles is left standing in her hallway, dripping pathetically into a small puddle of water that's formed around his feet. He hopes Deaton's books aren't too wet. 

"Why are you here?" Lydia asks. She sounds a little pissed, but fuck it. Stiles has important questions that need answering, Moms that need rescuing. He goes for the soft pitch:

"You know that goblin project that Ms. Larson gave us? I'm having a hard time with it. Thought I could use a little of your genius to, you know, polish up my essay." 

She arches a perfect eyebrow. 

"Really!" Stiles says. 

Lydia shrugs, and pats her hair back into place. 

"They're both about death," she says. "Like Persephone? In the underworld? Laura eats goblin fruit and nearly gets stuck in the underworld. But the other poem says that maybe that's not such a bad thing. I mean, the original name for fairies was _sidhe_ \- it means 'peace'," she says. 

"Peace?" Stiles repeats. 

"Peaceful," Lydia says. "Death is peaceful. You're safe from everything. So is the Otherworld."

"That... is incredibly creepy," Stiles says. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Lydia says. She walks into the kitchen while she's talking. "Look," she says, "what it really is is that Victorian women and children died _a lot_ , and there happened to be a literary movement that recycled a lot of old ideas from Celtic stories collected by folklorists. There was a huge craze." She presses a towel into his hands. "They thought it was romantic."

" _Creepy,_ " Stiles says. He scrubs his head with the towel and then takes off his hoodie completely. "Ugh." 

"How do you know all this stuff, anyways?" he asks, following her out of the kitchen.

"Research?" Lydia says. 

"Yeah, well, none of my books mentioned any of that stuff," Stiles says. 

"Well, you obviously didn't look in the right places," she says, and then she stops dead in the doorway to the living room. 

"Thank you for your hospitality, Lydia," a man's voice says. For an instant Stiles thinks that Deucalion is back, and horror stops his breath in his throat. "It's quite the family reunion you've enacted." 

Lydia looks back at Stiles, wide-eyed and confused.

"Come, boy," the man drawls. "Let me see you." 

The Goblin King is, improbably, sitting on Lydia's couch as easily as if it's a throne. Stiles had been vaguely imagining the elves from Lord of the Rings, flowing robes and long hair and refined faces, when he imagined the Fae. 

The man before him is half-hawk, with wild hair and unnervingly sharp eyes set in a gaunt face that rests somewhere between thirty and three-thousand. His clothes look like they've been poached from a Regency movie set, and then bedazzled to within an inch of their lives. 

The overall effect should be ridiculous, but instead it comes across as dazzling and otherworldly, which Stiles supposes is the whole point. 

He glances back at Lydia, but she's still standing in the doorway, frozen on the spot. His father follows his gaze.

"Lydia," he says, warmly. "Don't fret. Your debt has been repaid, child." He flicks his hand and a crystal ball materializes out of nowhere. When he tosses it to Lydia, she catches it one-handed and gives him a curious look. 

"No more dreams," the King says. "Not from me, at any rate. More than that, I cannot promise." 

"I don't need any more," Lydia says. She straightens her back and lifts her chin, nearly matching him for haughtiness. "I'm going upstairs, now," she says, and then she's gone. 

It's just Stiles and the Goblin King, now. 

His father. Just Stiles and his father.

"Call me Jareth," the King says.


End file.
